Thine
Eyes Bleed - In The Wake Of Separation - The End
Records 2005
9 Songs
Running Time: 36:22
After a few demos within as many years,
and featuring such notable members as an ex-guitarist of Kittie,
and a brother of a Slayer member, you'd think Canadians Thine
Eyes Bleed would be primed for success. Well, they're primed for
something, alright.
Thine Eyes Bleed kick things
off convincingly enough with the new-school metal (read:
not nu-metal) of 'Cold Victim', but by the time 'Without
Warning' was halfway through, I was searching in vain
for something - anything - to differentiate Thine
Eyes Bleed from any of the bands of their ilk currently
flooding the market. Sure, it's "harsh", and sure, it's "fast"...it's
also really fucking boring. There's a new sub-genre that's
been making waves ever since someone decided it would
be a good idea to record a half-assed attempt at writing
some At The Gates songs and see who bit. It's
not quite thrash, it's not quite metalcore. It's just
kind of there. Of course, there are exceptions to the
rule. ZAO (to me, they've always been a metal
band at heart) have managed to pull something useable
from the wreckage, and Germany's Neaera have made
a good first showing with The Rising Tide Of Oblivion,
so there is hope. And that's not to say that Thine
Eyes Bleed aren't skilled at their instruments.
The flaw, I believe, is in execution. More time spent learning songcraft,
and less time patching random riffs together and labelling them "songs" may
do them some good. Vocally, there's very little to offer here, and the
tone of the guitars stays in that "not raw enough for thrash, not downtuned
enough for hardcore" mode, which serves to render Song A indistinguishable
from Songs B-Z. 'Sliver' does manage to inject a frail sort of hook into
the mix, but it's much too little much too late in the case of Thine
Eyes Bleed. For the life of me, I can't figure out what The End Records
(a label known for pushing the envelope with stellar albums and artists)
was thinking. I'd pretty much bet that if Tom Araya had stopped his little
brother from going through his junked song ideas, we wouldn't have to
deal with this.
www.thineeyesbleed.com
|
